Review: If you've ever thought to yourself, "Hey, video games are great 'n all, but what I really want is one that allows me to fly through the skies while shooting jingle bells out of the clouds, fight giant watermelons that spit deadly seeds at me and kill deadly coathangers!" then I think I might have just the game for you.

Stinger is one of the earliest NES games I became completely obsessed with. Back The kid who lived across the street from me got this game as a gift but he was never into it. After just one play I knew it was amazing and I had to have it. I actually talked him into trading me his copy of Stinger for my copy of Gumshoe. Now, I have nothing against Gumshoe, but even I knew that it didn't have anything on Stinger as far as replay value goes.

Stinger actually comes from the "TwinBee" series, which was extremely popular in Europe, and to this day, it's the only one of the games that made it to the US as far as I know. It's a 2-player cooperative shooter that alternates between horizontal and vertical scrolling levels. There are a variety of weapon upgades that you can get from shooting jingle bells hidden in clouds until they change a particular color. While you're shooting these bells, however, you have to fight off hordes of some of the most bizarre enemies you'll ever see in a video game. It's basically the equivalent of performing a juggling act while fighting off a swarm of killer bees. To put it lightly, it can get challenging at times.

Remember when I mentioned the bizarre enemies? Of course you do, it was only a few sentences ago. Well... I wasn't kidding. This game is chock full o' weird goodness, which only adds to its charm and replayability. Green pumpkins, popsicles, sneakers, coathangers, unicycles, snails... they're all waiting for you inside Stinger. And those are just the regular enemies. You'll also have to fight some big bosses such as the aforementioned giant watermelon, a squid with pegs instead of tentacles, a deadly boombox and more.

Oh, did I mention that during your travels, you'll get to bomb graveyards and churches too? Yeah, I figured that'd help sell you on the game. Trust me, I don't hand out the 5-star pickle rating to just any ol' game... it has to be the cream of the crop and Stinger is just that. It's one of the greatest NES games you'll ever have the privilege of playing and it's a shame that it never got the credit it truly deserves. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some clouds to shoot hearts at so I can score me some more jingle bells.

Overall rating: (Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)

The TwinBee series came from Japan where it was pretty huge, but yeah this one managed to make it over here. I can't imagine anybody would forget playing a unique game like this considering all the insane items and characters. Refresh your memory and try it out again. Who wouldn't want to fight a deadly seed-spitting watermelon?

I should also mention this game has one of the best power-up theme songs EVER.

Also worth noting: I like Stinger so much in fact that I did a spoof on the watermelon boss battle for one of our big Halloween stories a few years ago in which you have to throw Cheetos at him while avoiding his deadly seeds. You can play it at the bottom of this page:http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/cyoa5/7013.php

I miss the old NES games, they didn't have to be made after movies or overly violent or even make sense. They were just fun! Nowadays, all games are just grafics and movie titles. :SIGH: I sure do miss the NES games.

Undead Overlord, while I agree that the focus on games back in the days of the NES were more on the quiality of the gameplay than on the graphics, there were still PLENTY of games based on movies and TV shows back then. Ever played Total Recall? Gilligan's Island? Talk about sucktacular movie games.